An electrical connector having an array of voltage carrying, conductive pin terminals is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,250. The pin terminals are on the order of 0.025 inches square, making them rigid and resistant to being bent when they are inserted into plating lined openings through a circuit board, and when they are mated with receptacle contacts on another, mating connector. The pin terminals extend through the openings and establish electrical connections with the plating lined openings.
A circuit board comprises, a board of insulating material, and planar conductive circuits on external surfaces of the board. A multilayer circuit board is a circuit board constructed with multiple layers of insulating material, and planar conductive circuits extending along the layers. The circuits on the circuit board are routed to avoid the pin terminals, except when the circuits intentionally connect with a plating lined opening to establish a connection with a pin terminal through the opening.
The openings through the circuit board consume space on the circuit board that could have been used for routing the circuits. The openings tend to crowd the circuits when the circuits are routed to avoid the pin terminals. Replacing the openings with solder pads will provide additional space to reduce crowding of the circuits.
Surface mount technology, SMT, refers to technology involving surface mount terminals that mount to solder pads on an exterior surface of a circuit board. Solder is used to join these surface mount terminals to the pads. To prevent the solder joints from being dislodged, fasteners, such as, small bolts, hold the connector in place on the circuit board.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,250 conductive pin terminals in an electrical connector are bent to point in two different directions to plug the pin terminals into two different circuit boards. The pin terminals extend through openings in both circuit boards, and are not terminals that reduce the number of openings through the circuit boards.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,565, conductive terminals in an electrical connector are bent in two directions to orient the connector in one of the two directions while on a circuit board. The terminals are surface mount terminals without a locating pin terminal that holds the connector to a circuit board.